There is a very useful online resource covering where I live in the UK, which shows public footpaths.
Is there anything similar for France?
I have seen the maps showing the GRs, but that’s not the same thing, nor is there any near our new address.
There is a very useful online resource covering where I live in the UK, which shows public footpaths.
Is there anything similar for France?
I have seen the maps showing the GRs, but that’s not the same thing, nor is there any near our new address.
take your pick
your tourist office can help
here’s one for Perigord, for example, paper maps, or download the pdf’s
Just followed your link to
But most of my local walks weren’t shown - maybe better to get those little booklet(s) of local walks from the mairie or the nearest tourist office.
Good supermarkets often have a range of local maps for close by areas and some can be very detailed.
Didn’t Suunto use to do very detailed handheld walking and mountaineering machines that didn’t need a mobile signal?..I’d suspect whatever they’re using in Switzerland these days is best. As when I lived there ordinary people tbought nothing of haring up their nearest mountain at the weekend and were always well equipped.
We use Visorando app. The basic free version is ok but for €12 a year we get the IGN map base which is better. Not Ordnance Survey of course, but ok. And oeople post walks they’ve done with the route which is good.
We still buy paper maps, but this is the daily go to. Today our planned walk was blocked by fallen trees, so easy to find somewhere else nearby.
The good thing about visorando is you can see dates when people walked a route. So often local paper maps are out of date, and paths have been altered.
Yep - we went to our local bookshop (that’s a new resolution to add to the no foie gras: use bookshops rather tham Amazon where possible) and got the 1:25000 one
The IGN map system is good, and I use it for finding interesting trails near us - but I must admit that the one area in which British seems to be Best is in mapping: I’ve never found another country with the up-to-date, detailed mapping that’s provided by the British Ordnance Survey.
I used to love a good OS map, especially the landranger ones of snowdonia, the lakes and Scotland, absolutely essential before gps and mobile phones. Unfortunately all of mine seem to have been “lost” since I moved here , someone’s decluttered me…
some tourist offices are better equipped than others… and sometimes you need to visit the Regional ones…
either way… it’s interesting to note that France is criss-crossed with some great trails and that the maps are available (somewhere )
I would echo @_Brian 's comments on the quality of IGN maps. Their app, Cartes IGN is both easy to use and free… I use it in conjunction with their paper maps, which are superb for getting an overall view of the area.
I’m currently walking in the Ardennes border area of France and Belgium and it appears that local (tourist office) maps aren’t exactly ‘joined up’ when it comes to cross border coverage!
I’m only surprised it doesn’t say “Here be Monsters” in a suitably gothic script!
Nobody has ever decluttered me.
Thanks - I’ve downloaded it. Unfortunately it doesn’t work on a Mac, but I think I can probably get the Android version to work on a PC. And it’s great to have it available while out.
We use an app called Organic Maps (it’s free). We use it if we want to make up our own walks as it does show paths. It uses Open Street Maps. Sometimes my husband has used a tracker and if the path we are not walking on isn’t on the map, we track it and add it to Open Street Maps and then it eventually appears in Organic Maps. One walk we did showed a footbridge over a river … not! So we ended up wading across. Later on we deleted the footbridge on Open Street Maps.
That’s what I use as well, but I use the OpenStreetMaps (walks) instead. Round here, there are loads of tracks marked on the OpenStreetMaps that aren’t on the IGN maps.
Yes, I’ve used that as well, but went back to Visorando as the map quality seems to be better, even though it also uses OpensStreetMaps. I also find it easier to use.
Thanks very much for all the advice
I use visorando app both in France and the uk which allows access to their excellent Ordnance survey maps (and Spanish maps as well)